


Close

by Roca



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, just so you know, lots of blood and violence and swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-09 01:28:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7781590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roca/pseuds/Roca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jenny almost heads right. She almost runs to the nearest door slams herself against it and gets the hell out of the school.<br/>But her brain is clunking along slowly and wildly, and somehow jumps to library instead of outside, because the library is where they always go in times of trouble, and Angel is right fucking there and she doesn’t have time to think about it too deeply. So she veers left, heels clopping and sliding unsteadily on the tile and fuck, why couldn’t she have worn normal goddamn shoes, these fucking shoes are going to get her killed.</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

> Okay, this is way more like a horror movie-ish in tone than anything I've written before, but I really wanted to write Jenny cussing and being a badass and this was the result. My friend made me watch all of the Final Destination movies last summer, so let's pretend this is her fault.

Everything in her head is jumbled, thoughts piling on top of each other and snapping vaguely into and out of coherency. Waves of pain pulse out from the point where her forehead hit the door. When she looks back, Angel is staring down at her with amusement.

Jenny almost heads right. She almost runs to the nearest door slams herself against it and gets the hell out of the school.

But her brain is clunking along slowly and wildly, and somehow jumps to _library_ instead of _outside_ , because the library is where they always go in times of trouble, and Angel is right fucking _there_ and she doesn’t have time to think about it too deeply. So she veers left, heels clopping and sliding unsteadily on the tile and _fuck_ , why couldn’t she have worn normal goddamn shoes, these fucking shoes are going to get her _killed_.

Angel practically strolls down the hallway, as though he’s on some pleasant walk in the park instead of a homicide mission. She can almost imagine him whistling a jaunty tune as he draws closer, snatches her into his arms and pulls and _breaks_ —

She’s going too fast, panic-spiked and desperately dizzy, so she stumbles against the library doors and swings right through them to sprawl on the floor. For a moment, she’s intensely grateful that Rupert didn’t lock them — and then she realizes ( _fuck, fuck, fuck_ ) that this is Rupert’s place, and he might be here, and she might have just ensured that he will share whatever messy end she seems bound to meet tonight.

But the lights are all out, leaving the library dark and looming, and all of his books and the weapons he uses to train Buffy are all tucked out of sight (and those are sure to be locked away, so they won’t be of any use to her). There is not a soul left to help her or even to offer the paltry, unwanted comfort bearing witness to her death.

Jenny shoves herself to her feet and plunges blindly toward the upper level of the library. She almost goes down again on the short flight of stairs, her heel catching on the edge of one step, but she grabs the banister and wrenches herself back upright. It’s pitch black in here, and she’s so fucking thankful that she knows the place well enough to more or less navigate by memory (and there are so many memories in this place, with the kids and research and Rupert — up against that bookshelf over there, his mouth warm on hers and that’s never going to happen again, never — fuck, no, there isn’t time for this).

The doors on the lower level swish open again as Angel enters, and Jenny scrambles clear of the stairs and toward the stacks. There’s an exit somewhere back there, and she holds on to that hope even as she remembers that she’s parked on the opposite side of the building.

He’s closer now, too close, and all she can think about is that she’s going to die here; she’s going to die a failure, without fixing anything, and Angel is going to make sure that she knows a kind of hurt a thousand times worse than the pain still heavy at her temple.

It’s getting harder to breathe, exertion and fear pooling thickly in her lungs, so she ducks behind the nearest bookshelf and forces herself to stay as still and quiet as she can (though her hands still shake so badly she imagines that she can hear the bones rattling inside of them). She has no illusions about her ability to hide from Angel, and no clue what she’s going to do next. There is no door visible through the thick gloom, no regulation-demanded exit sign glowing like a beacon, no way out.

For a moment, just a moment, as she presses herself spine-to-spine against the row of books on the shelf, she thinks about giving up. It would be so easy just to close her eyes and stand still until he came and ended it. It would so easy if everything was just _over_.

But then she hears the swish of a coat in the next aisle over, and a fresh wave of terror blots out every coherent thought in her head. She’d been scared when she was running, yes, but that was a clattering, cacophonous kind of fear. What she feels now, still and quiet and shuddering in the shadows, is somehow worse.

“Come on out, Jenny,” calls a voice from a few rows over. “I don’t bite.” A low chuckle. “Much.”

He must know where she is. He must be able to hear her rapid breathing, to see her silhouette in the dark. Maybe he can even smell her fear. The thought is so ridiculous yet terrifyingly possible that she has to smother a hysterical giggle as it creeps up her throat.

The only reason he hasn’t caught her yet is because he’s playing with her. She’s cornered. Game over, at least for her. Angel is just prolonging the inevitable for shits and giggles at this point.

Steeling herself, Jenny begins to edge along the bookshelf. Instinct has shoved every other part of her brain into the back seat, and instinct says to _get the hell away_ , even if that just means putting a few more shelves between her and Angel. Maybe she can keep this up (what, seven more hours?) until daybreak, and Rupert will walk into the library to find her and The Scourge of Fucking Europe still playing their messed up hybrid of tag and hide-and seek in the stacks.

Yeah, not likely.

Still, it’s something to do. The all-encompassing fear and doubt that swamped her when she was standing stock-still abate somewhat as she moves down the row. She forces herself to turn and look both ways once she reaches its end, but there’s no sign of Angel, not even a hint of a shadow in the moonlight.

Holy fucking _shit_. Moonlight.

Near the top of one of the shelves at the far corner of the room, silvery light spills down from a single-paned window. Most of it is blocked by a pile of books, but it looks like it just might be big enough for her to fit through. If she can open it. And reach it. And not get fucking killed by the homicidal monster still wandering the room in the process.

Jenny hesitates for a moment. Two moments. Then she begins to walk softly forward. She makes it a full three steps before panic kicks in, hard, and she bolts for the window. Angel could be anywhere, could be a breath behind her right now, could be tangling his hands in her hair and reeling her with her neck bared and blood thundering in her veins —

But he isn’t. Jenny throws herself at the shelf beneath the window and begins to hoist herself up. It’s awkward, like climbing a too-big, too-straight ladder that also happens to be full of books. It barely holds her weight, wobbling dangerously as she scrambles to the window’s level and begins to shove the stacks of books out of the way.

She freezes for a fraction of a heartbeat as she stares at the glass in the window. Fuck, she is so _close_. This isn’t going to be the thing that stops her. So she sucks in a deep breath, balls her hand into a fist, and swings at it as hard as she can.

There’s a sickening crunch and a jangle of shattered glass. Jenny barely feels her fingers break, barely has time to cry out, because a grip as cold and heavy as stone latches onto her ankle and begins to drag her down.

She writhes wildly, scrabbling for purchase with her free arm. The other is embedded halfway through the window — as she twists about, the hole in the window widens even as the glass bites deeply into the skin around her elbow. Angel is pulling her inexorably downward, despite her death grip on the windowsill, but she does not turn around for fear that the sight of his snarling, rabid face will cause her to let go completely. She slides back another few inches, and she can feel the bones in her creaking under the pressure of his hands, and he is going to reel her in and rip her to pieces, and —

And then, miraculously, one of her thrashing feet makes contact with his face. Something breaks under the heavy blow from her clunky, ridiculous, lifesaving heel. The grip on her ankle loosens slightly — just enough — and Jenny heaves herself forward and free of his grasp in one lunge, slamming headfirst (goddamn, Rupert is going to lose his monopoly on concussions after tonight) into the partially-broken window. It shatters further, and she’s dragging her other arm through, and then her torso, and her weight is teetering between the monster inside and the empty space below because somehow, she kind of didn’t factor in the huge drop from this window to the ground.

She doesn’t have time to blink, or even make any conscious decision about going one way or the other, because Angel is roaring and the wood of the bookshelf is groaning under his weight as he launches himself after her. Jenny wriggles further out, and suddenly she’s pitching forward and downward, falling free of the building even as an unmistakable series of thumps and crashes rattles behind her. (The bookshelf could handle the weight of a stress-starved teacher without toppling, but a burly vampire seems to have been a different story. Go figure.)

Jenny manages to twist in midair so that she lands on her shoulder instead of her face. There’s a weird noise as she hits the ground, almost a pop, and her shoulder feels like it’s exploded. She hauls herself the hell back up, panting at the pain and looking down at her arm, which is at an angle that no arm is probably ever supposed to be in. It fucking hurts.

But she doesn’t have time for hurt. She tears her gaze away from her fucked up shoulder (it isn’t less painful when she’s not looking, but she can almost pretend that it is) and stumbles out into the night. Her car is parked way the hell on the other side of the school, so she sticks close to the edge of the building — but not too close — as she makes her way around. Her eyes dart around constantly, scanning the empty lawns and stretches of asphalt for any approaching shadows. Her entire body is covered with cuts from the window, leaving blood to clot in her skirt and tattered sleeves, and there’s a particularly deep gash in her forearm that continually pulses out crimson in time with her jagged heartbeat. Jenny pictures a pack of vampires drawn to the area like sharks at the scent of blood and picks up her pace as much as her battered body can stand to.

She feels a spike of relief when she finally turns the corner and catches sight of her car in the parking lot. There’s a terrible stitch in her side compounding the dizziness caused by every other fucking bit of trauma that she’s endured, but she keeps running until she’s got her hand on the door and is pulling it open and clambering inside.

Except that doesn’t happen, because the door is locked, because _her keys are in her fucking purse in her classroom_. She stares numbly at the car, feeling as though somebody has pulled the plug on her brain. She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, despite the danger, and then tries to force herself to look around, to figure out another plan. Distantly, she realizes that the hood of her car is lifted. The inside, when she walks around to examine it, is a broken mess of opened valves, unplugged tubes, and punctured fluid tanks. Of course. Angel knows what her car looks like, after all; she did drive him to the docks with Buffy that night that everything went to hell.

She needs time to think. She needs time to stop, and to understand the full extent of every damn bit of pain that’s stabbing through her right now, and maybe to curl up into a ball and cry her eyes out.

But she doesn’t have time.

Unsteadily, she turns and begins toward of the distant, empty street. It isn’t likely that many people will be driving around the high school this late, especially in a town like Sunnydale, but flagging down a car is her only hope at this point. She feels exposed out in the open, and the streetlights at the edge of the road bob up and down like hazy will-o’-the-wisps as she forces herself into a jog. She’s terrified to look behind her, terrified of what she might see, because it’s been so long and he _must_ be coming, must be right behind her.

She braces herself, and turns, and he’s there.

Not right behind her, exactly; not yet. But he’s barreling between the parked cars at a faster clip than she could ever manage on her best day, approaching the end of the parking lot, and she’s _fucked_. Adrenaline has performed miracles for her tonight, but she’s reached her limit. The panic that now swallows her is dull and blurred instead of electrifying, and it causes her to nearly stumble in the grass rather than gain a new burst of speed. She’s close to the road (so fucking close), but it doesn’t matter. There’s nobody there, and he’s closing in.

And then, suddenly, headlights. A car has turned off from a side street and is cruising toward her — still a short distance off, but _maybe, maybe_ —

Jenny does the only thing she can think of and plunges directly into its path. The driver, invisible in the glare of the headlights, abruptly throws on the brakes, and Jenny is fumbling with the stupidly stubborn red handle to the passenger-side door in an instant. But her hands are shaking too badly and she can _see_ him, at the edge of the street and half a second away, still flying toward her with the orange glow of the streetlights casting thick shadows in the hollows of his hideous face. Then the latch clicks and she’s heaving the door open and scrambling inside. He’s there, reaching into the car to pull her out again. This close, she can see that his nose is bent and blotched with blood, which probably accounts for no small portion of the murder in his eyes.

With all the strength she has left, Jenny slams the door on his arm. There’s a nasty crack, and Angel bellows in agony, but his hand is still snatching at her wildly inside the car.

“Drive!” she screams, never taking her eyes off of him. “Drive! _Go!_ ” Obligingly, the car rockets off into the night. Angel is dragged along beside them for a few yards, howling as the asphalt tears into him, until Jenny lets go of her grip on the door and he falls to the wayside and disappears behind them.

Jenny shakily closes the car door. Everything in her head is swimming as she watches the darkened town flash by. They’re probably pushing fifty in a school zone, but worrying about traffic violations is currently pretty low on her list of priorities. She thinks, distantly, that she should definitely be fucking dead right now.

“Ms. Calendar?” says a voice from beside her. A familiar voice.

( _Oh, no fucking way._ )

From the driver’s seat, Cordelia stares at Jenny with wide eyes. “What the hell just happened?”

Jenny looks at her for a moment, and then begins to laugh. It’s a terrible laugh, one that wrenches in her chest and sends spasms of pain through every broken bone and disjointed limb, but she can’t seem to stop it. Cordelia only looks more alarmed, and perhaps faintly worried.

“You look really messed up,” Cordelia tells her. “Should I, like, take you to the hospital?”

“Giles,” Jenny whispers without thinking, managing with difficulty to quell her hysterical laughter. “I need to go to Giles’ place. He’s… He’s expecting me.” Cordelia looks doubtful, but nods and takes the turn toward his apartment.

Jenny leans her head against the window, closes her eyes, and does everything she can to not fall to pieces right then and there.


End file.
